Sinners
by Everlane
Summary: They were friends but weren't friends. Not even 'frenemies'. But the type of friends who never stepped over private boundaries by choice. Quinntana friendship. Slight Pezberry. Time set before 'Stuck'.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own Glee, just the story idea.

…

**Sinners**

They weren't the closest of friends, but they have known each other since they learned to walk. A strange relationship in Quinn's opinion, and she didn't really want to know what the other thought of it. What mattered was that they had an odd relationship. They were friends but weren't friends. Not even 'frenemies'. But the type of friends who never stepped over private boundaries by choice. They were one of a kind. Alike perhaps. Both competitive, strong, even manipulative if worst comes to worst. It wasn't an observation, but a fact.

The warm afternoon reflected the friendly and familial atmosphere the restaurant usually held. During the after hours of school, cliques from McKinley High hung out in small booths, chatting the evening away. The low head lamp above almost shadowed the right side of Santana's face.

Her dark mane was held loosely in a high ponytail, with a few strands loose. Hawk like eyes were narrowed as arms folded in front of a white shirt covered with their school's letter-man jacket, with the jade pendant of her gold necklace gleaming on her chest. Quinn was the image of purity, dressed in a baby blue summer dress covered with a navy blue cardigan and over tan ankle length boots. Demure. Something she knew Santana had been jealous about back in the day.

The hardened stare she gave Quinn might tell a random stranger that she was annoyed by something. But the blonde knew better. Somehow when Quinn innocently asked her friend to have dinner at Breadstix with her, she knew that Santana was aware of her intentions. It wasn't because the blonde just wanted to hang out.

"Did you know that the Bible says cheating is wrong?"

Her calm hazel eyes bored unto the other girl, gradually making Santana tense more on purpose. It was said in a low voice, right before the blonde took a sip of water. Short highlighted tresses were combed back with her fingers, while Santana fixed her with a glare.

Santana scoffed. "You're one to talk."

Quinn smirked. "You need to be more creative. Just because I cheated on Finn and had Beth doesn't make me an atheist. Freedom of speech says I can still preach if I want to."

Sandy came to the other girl's rescue. Just in time. Santana and she were able to order their food and drinks before the waitress left. She saw that the cheerio was trying to avoid talking about this, the expression on her face a realm of conflicting emotions. She let a few minutes pass by, hands clasped over the table while she watched her friend pay attention to people.

"I'd rather have you not tell this to anyone." Santana said, her throat moving. "Only my family knows about her."

"What did they say?"

She shrugged. "You know parents and their matchmaking crap."

Quinn blinked. "They like her?"

"They're crazy abouther, but they hate how she came up."

As stunned as she was, she didn't notice that Sandy came back and began to put the plated food on the table. The heavenly smells of melted cheese and marinara sauce in the lasagna with freshly baked bread sticks filled her nostrils, so she decided to begin eating when Santana dug in. They stayed that way in companionable silence, no trace of animosity coming from either of them.

She didn't realize that the other girl began to pick her food. After chewing on a piece bread stick, she looked up to see Santana push her half eaten plate towards the center of the table.

"Sometimes I wish no one knew."

The blonde paused, putting her fork down on the plate of lasagna. She sat back to study her friend, noting the way Santana stared forlornly at away from the plate. Her face seemed rigid, forehead drawn together as she frowned. She was conflicted. And that wasn't supposed to be the way you felt when you're cheating behind your girlfriend's back.

"Why do you say that?"

Santana looked up. "I wouldn't be with her."

That was when Santana really looked at her. Really did. The blonde knew what her friend meant when she said that. If her friend hadn't been forced to come out, perhaps she would live life never coming on good terms with Rachel Berry. They would 't be friends, which meant that Santana wouldn't get to know Rachel and Brittany would still stay stuck on her mind.

"I still you're going to burn in hell."

Santana laughed, her once troubled expression happy when her body shook. Quinn was never going to admit it to her friend, but there were moments like these where she always loved to hear Santana laugh. It wasn't a big deal or anything, but Santana seemed so much different from the one she usually is.

"It's been five months and I'm done being crazy over it." Santana said and drank some water. "When it started we were thinking it wasn't that serious. We thought we were just messing around."

The blonde frowned. "Five months?" She asked, her body stiff and her food already abandoned with a napkin over it. "You've been with her for five months?"

"Yeah." Santana said.

Quinn was stunned, dating for five months meant Rachel was still with Finn before he broke up with her for another girl, a cheerio named Susan Garrison. February would be the time the two girls would start to see each other secretly. No wonder. Finn was still trying to get Rachel back ever since his short tryst, but now she knew why he couldn't even woo Rachel again. She was already taken.

"We were at my place when we decided to go on a date." Quinn nodded, her head still reeling. "Just to remind ourselves that we weren't that into each other, that it was just the sex part that was interesting."

She couldn't help but squirm in her seat, even Santana noticed it, but it didn't stop her from talking. She knew it herself. The idea of both she and Rachel was not something anyone imagined. But one look at Santana, and the blonde knew that her friend saw it in a different light. Quinn believed it too. And not just because of the way Santana looked or the fact that she's never seem them _really _together.

Quinn believed it because when saw the signs, yet she never paid attention. Her mind reeled months back, back to mid January. She remembered meetings in the choir room, seeing Santana speak to Rachel. They were friendly, but something was off. They seemed _too_ formal to each other rather than friendly. When Santana would ask a question or suggest something, it was just the way she stared at Rachel that made Quinn think twice about them.

The blonde guessed that was why she quickly made a conclusion when she saw them in the choir room when the glee meeting was canceled. Last month on a late Friday afternoon, when just and few students and the group of jocks and cheerios were left practicing on the football field.

She just finished her Physics homework in the school library and happened to pass the choir room to go home when she was stopped by low voices. One she recognized as Santana, but the other she had to listen more to know. Near the closed double doors that led into the room, she leaned forward to see the two standing by the piano through one side's small lite.

It only took her moments to realize the petite girl next to Santana dressed in a yellow cardigan over a beige and navy blue bordered skirt with black loafers was none other than Rachel Berry. Santana asked Rachel if she wanted to continue something. And the other girl seemed to be in deep thought. It threw Quinn off for Rachel too think real hard about a simple question, and it might as well had her fall over because Santana asked the question in a tone she found odd.

Their closeness was another note too. The way Rachel would reach out to pull back a strand on the other girl's hair. Or the way Santana enclosed her hands in hers. Little things. And it kept Quinn rooted on the spot.

"_I want it to work."_

That was Rachel who answered Santana, and when the two closed their distance Quinn had to pull back. She reminisced leaning on the wall, wondering if she was hallucinating. Her rapid heart beat made her even scared that the two would hear her. Her skin crawling in response to shock but not disgust. But when she stepped back forward to look through the door windows again, it hit her. She saw them, lips merged, with the shorter girl pinning Santana to the piano while her hands held tanned wrists.

With the sounds of their shallow breaths, the soft smacks of their lips parting a few times before they delved in again, she had to rush outside to get home. She caught someone cheating, but this was a private moment she had no intentions of staying long for.

Santana chuckled. "But then the date was a disaster, it didn't do anything to solve the problem. We talked the mile away until the restaurant had to close down. That's longer than I'd ever been with Brittany."

"What are you going to do?"

Someone passed by them, probably a high school freshman they didn't recognize but thought they saw a face like that. It didn't matter, not even when the young girl turned back to give Santana a wary look. It was normal for the cheerio to get these types of looks, especially since she came out.

Instead of confronting them, Santana no longer bothered to correct them. She once told Quinn that people were people no matter what. If she wanted to teach them a lesson, it would be a waste of precious time and she'd get more wrinkles.

Santana took another sip of water before she cleared her throat. "I know that I'm still with Brittany and this is probably the most shittiest thing I did."

"Ditto."

The other girl shrugged before she pinned Quinn down with an unwavering gaze. "But I'd rather you hold off on telling the whole school. I would never do that to her just like that."

Eyebrows went up, but Quinn kept her cool composure. She loved Brittany. She was her friend, and would always have a place in the Unholy Trinity. But she knew that Santana was also a part of them too, and she would never dare hurt someone she cared for. Santana might have been horrible in the past, but she was loyal..very loyal. And it had to be a reason for her to do this unless what Quinn's image of her was false all along.

Santana sighed. "I thought I knew love when I was with B. But when I'm with Rachel I can't really describe what I feel, except that it's like I can't..._think straight _with her in the same room with me...am I making sense?"

A pause. "I get it."

"Being with B, it's like I have to initiate a lot of stuff with her. Most of the time I don't even think she gets that we're supposed to act a different way when we're dating. We don't do anything that makes us a couple. She's not stupid, but I can't really do a lot of things with her."

Quin scowled. "So is this what it's about? Doing more stuff with her?" Santana glared at Quinn, not liking her words. "I hate to say this but just because Rachel seems to give _more _to you than B doesn't mean-"

"We'll always be best friends." Santana said. "And don't you sit there and start coming up with shit like that 'cause I won't buy it. I meant love not sex. You know me better than that."

The blonde looked away, hazel eyes tracking the customers who came in and out of Breadstix's front entrance.

"Look. Just keep this between us for a little longer." Santana said. "I don't plan on staying with B. I think she kinda knows about what's going on."

"And that makes it all better?"

Santana stared at the blonde, unperturbed by what she said. "Yes it does. I love B, no doubt about that. But I know it's not in that way and I'm sure she feels the same."

Quinn didn't reply but just watched her. "And I'm not going to fight with myself over this crap for any longer. I was done with that when I came out. But we still need time...we might not even do it while we're in school."

The blonde arched a brow, arms folded under her bust.

"That's not fair to everyone."

"Life's not fair." Santana fired back in a calm voice.

She held back her next words, aware that Santana would provide another comeback with the glare she sent her way. Quinn could only let Santana's words sink in, her shoulders slumping with the secret she now knew. When Sandy came back, the two McKinley seniors snapped back into reality before Quinn paid for both of them and decided they should leave.

The drive was silent. Like nothing ever happened. Quinn drove the other girl home since she was the one who picked her up after school. When she parked in front of Santana's house, she held her friend's arm before she could even slip out the car. Santana sat back and waited for what she was going to say next.

"I'll be quiet about it."

A simple answer that meant much more, and the other girl understood it's meaning perfectly. Her cheeks rose when a smile crept up in response, squeezing the blonde's hand. A sign of gratitude. And it was then that Quinn saw the girl who grew up with her.

The toddler whose hair she yanked when they were in a play pen in her mother's home. The little five year old girl who once pushed her in a puddle of mud and apologized later by giving her a candy bar. The cheerio who slammed her in the lockers and fought with her after she told Sylvester about the breast surgery. Yet, the one who comforted her in New York when she cried about not having anyone to love her. She could go on and on.

Santana was a bitch, but she was a damn good best friend. And her chest swelled in sheer happiness at the thought of it. Their memories were filled with fights and more fights. But in a way, Quinn guessed that was what sisters did when they knew each other very well. And when she kept her eyes on that smile, she knew that Santana got it.

She understood.

…

**End Note:** So what do you think? I'd love to hear some feedback and criticism concerning your thoughts on this one-shot.

**The End.**


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